Canadiens: St. Louis Compares Cole Caufield To Steven Stamkos

Following the conclusion of the Montreal Canadiens 2021-22 seasons with a 10-2 victory over the Florida Panthers, head coach Martin St. Louis mentioned that he will return as head coach of the team next season and that Cole Caufield reminds him a whole lot of Steven Stamkos in his rookie season.

The comparison with a player of the calibre of Steven Stamkos is not one that can be taken lightly, especially coming from a man who played with the star for six seasons, including his magical 60-goal campaign in 2011-12.

The clear differences that need to be acknowledged are that Caufield, a winger, started the season as a 20-year-old, while Stamkos, a centre, was a newly-drafted 18-year-old. Despite these distinctions between the two, their similarities are many.

Prior to hitting the NHL, both were breaking goalscoring records (or coming extremely close to doing so) in their respective Junior leagues, Stamkos in the OHL, and Caufield in the USNTDP. Since 2000, only Patrick Kane has scored more goals in his draft-eligible season as an OHL player than Stamkos, whose 58 tie John Tavares, who did score them in five fewer games. Caufield, for his part, shattered the USNTDP goalscoring records on a generational team filled with future first-round picks and current NHLers. Caufield scored 72 goals in 64 games in his draft year.

But it is in their rookie seasons where the similarities really start to pop. Both players scored 23 goals, Caufield did so in 67 Canadiens games, while it took Stamkos 79. Both players are right shots who scored many of their tallies on the power play from the left circle. Both players even logged nearly identical penalty minutes, Caufield’s 40 set a pace of 47. Over the 79 games Stamkos played, who spent 46 minutes in the box that year.

Perhaps the most striking resemblance between the two seasons, however, is that both came to slow starts upon stratospheric expectations. Stamkos was the brand-new first-overall pick tasked with breathing new life into the organization, which had won the Stanley Cup just four years prior.

However, through his first three months of play, he scored just 4 goals and 14 points in 36 games. Considering that the previous first overall pick, Patrick Kane, had scored 72 points in 82 games the season prior, this was seen as disappointing. Stamkos was even a healthy scratch on January 9 of that season due to his struggles.

Caufield, for his part, had a highly-documented struggle to produce to start this season. Under Dominique Ducharme, he scored just a solitary goal and 8 points in 30 games, even being sent down to the AHL for 6 games in the Fall. Following the 4 goals he scored in his first 10 NHL games at the end of last regular season, and the 4 goals and 12 points he put up in 20 playoff games, hopes were very high for him to take the next step this season with the Canadiens, but that didn’t happen… at first.

Stamkos ramped up his production in 2009, even putting up 8 goals and 15 points in 15 games in March. Caufield did the same, with the catalyst for his rediscovered scoring touch being the appointment of yet another link between himself and Stamkos: Martin St. Louis, who mentored both.

Caufield has potted matched his jersey number in goals scored (22) and added 13 assists for 35 points in the 37 games he’s played since St. Louis’ hiring. This includes a nearly-identical month of March to Stamkos’ as a rookie, with 7 goals and 15 points in 15 games, trading in a goal for an assist. While Caufield’s assists dried up in the late stretch of the season, with no assists in his final 11 games, the goals kept on coming, especially with his hat trick to finish the year; he potted 5 goals in his last 5 games.

While the two players have different playstyles, both are natural goalscorers who score in similar ways, were mentored by Martin St. Louis, and had strikingly similar rookie campaigns, fighting through the adversity of early-season struggles with great expectations to finish their respective years with more than respectable (and nearly identical) production.

Considering Stamkos has won two cups, scored 60 goals and 100 points one time each, and posted 40 goals and 90 points five times each, Canadiens fans can be very happy that Caufield’s coach compared him to Stamkos.

Statistics sources from Elite Prospects and Hockey Reference.

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